Attitudes towards death are shaped by our social worlds. This book explores how beliefs, practices and representations of dying and death continue to evolve and adapt in response to changing global societies. Introducing students to debates around grief, religion and life expectancy, this is a clear guide to a complex field for all sociologists.

How do doctors and nurses communicate with frightened patients who are dying, address the needs and concerns of the patients, and help the patients arrive at an acceptance of death? This work deals with the relationship that the health care team has with the dying and how well that team is prepared to address the fears of the dying. In addition, the health care team must learn to deal with their own emotions and ignorance concerning death. This work should be of interest to those professions that deal closely with dying people.

Are you ready to discover what lies beyond the ordinary experience of grief?

Sacred Grief offers an intriguing exploration of the far-reaching rippleeffect of our present-day opinions about surviving grief's emotionalroller-coaster and the unnecessary suffering our judgments unconsciouslypromote. You'll find comfort in discovering that there's anotherdimension to this universal experience--a dimension that fosters trust, kindness and compassion, peacefully heals, and steadfastly moves youtowards your soul's deepest desires and dreams.
Praise for Sacred Grief
"Because we will all have the experience, Sacred Grief is a compellingguide for everyone searching for the sweetness in life's great passages."
--Gregg Braden, author, "The Divine Matrix" and "The God Code"
"Sacred Grief is a holy handbook for gleaning the gifts of the journeycalled grief."
--Mary Manin Morrissey, Co-founder, Association for Global New Thought
"Sacred Grief is a welcome departure from the conventional advice about'surviving' grief."
--Jill Carroll, Ph.D., Executive Director, Boniuk Center for the Study andAdvancement of Religious Tolerance, Rice University
"I highly recommend this book to anyone that has experienced any type of loss in their livesand is willing to look at the loss through a different set of eyes. Tessman, in Sacred Grief, willlead the reader to a place of compassion for oneself, create a relationship with his/her own grief, and ultimately create a place of understanding and a healed soul."
--Irene Watson, Managing Editor, Reader Views
Learn more about this book at www.SacredGrief.com
Another great self-help book from Loving Healing press www.LovingHealing.com
SEL010000 Self-Help: Death, Grief, Bereavement
FAM014000 Family & Relationships: Death, Grief, Bereavement
SOC036000 Social Science: Death & Dying

Chapter 12 of this book is open access under a CC BY license. Well-established scholars from a variety of disciplines - including sociology, anthropology, media and cultural studies, and political sciences - use the social construction of death and dying to analyse a wide variety of meaning-making practices in societal fields such as ethics, politics, media, medicine and family.

This book offers a new approach by combining the disciplines of history, psychology, and religion to explain the suicidal element in both Western culture and the individual, and how to treat it. Ancient Greek society displays in its literature and the lives of its people an obsessive interest in suicide and death. Kaplan and Schwartz have explored the psychodynamic roots of this problem--in particular, the tragic confusion of the Greek heroic impulse and its commitment to unsatisfactory choices that are destructively rigid and harsh. The ancient Hebraic writings speak little of suicide and approach reality and freedom in vastly different terms: God is an involved parent, caring for his children. Therefore, heroism, in the Greek sense, is not needed nor is the individual compelled to choose between impossible alternatives.

In each of the first three sections, the authors discuss the issues of suicide from a comparative framework, whether in thought or myth, then the suicide-inducing effects of the Graeco-Roman world, and finally, the suicide-preventing effects of the Hebrew world. The final section draws on this material to present a suicide prevention therapy. Historical in scope, the book offers a new psychological model linking culture to the suicidal personality and suggests an antidote, especially with regard to the treatment of the suicidal individual.

This engaging and informative resource provides readers with an understanding of the social, cultural, and historical influences that shape our encounters with death, dying, and bereavement-a universal experience across humanity. Written in an engaging and accessible style by leading international scholars and practitioners from within the field of death and bereavement studies, this book will have broad appeal, providing in a single volume insights from some of the key thinkers within the interdisciplinary field of death, dying, and bereavement. Its approximately 200 entries will serve as useful starting points for those new to the topic and will be informative to those already acquainted with some of the core concepts and ideas within this burgeoning field of inquiry. This encyclopedia will serve as an essential resource for high school and undergraduate students, those engaged in independent research, and professionals whose work involves caring for the dead, dying, and bereaved. It will also be of great interest to general readers intrigued by the social, medical, and cultural dimensions to human mortality. Underscored by the inescapable biological certainties that affect us all, The A-Z of Death and Dying offers a highly relevant examination of the social and historical variation in the rituals, practices, and beliefs surrounding the end of life. Provides comprehensive yet easily accessible and concise entries that offer insight into the expanding study of death, dying, and bereavement Contains more than 200 engaging entries from key thinkers and practitioners within the interdisciplinary field of death studies Addresses a wide range of topics of both contemporary and historical interest, including memorial tattoos, Facebook grieving, and so-called "dark tourism," which reflect shifting attitudes and practices surrounding end-of-life issues

The Segelberg Lecture Series explores the intersection of religious faith and public policy. This book contains the lectures of the Trust's fi rst series, which were focused on The Ends of Life. Dalhousie University's School of Public Administration managed the series through a lecture committee under the able leadership of the former Dean of Dalhousie Law School, Professor Innis Christie, Q.C.

Mortuary Dialogues presents fresh perspectives on death and mourning across the Pacific Islands. Through a set of rich ethnographies, the book examines how funerals and death rituals give rise to discourse and debate about sustaining moral personhood and community amid modernity and its enormous transformations. The book's key concept, "mortuary dialogue," describes the different genres of talk and expressive culture through which people struggle to restore individual and collective order in the aftermath of death in the contemporary Pacific.

Die geliefde skrywer Dana Snyman deel sy waarnemings en belewenisse van die vreemdste tye wat ons nog beleef het: Die boek begin triomfantelik met die Springbokke wat die Rugbywêreldbeker wen, en toegejuig word tydens optogte deur die hoofstede van ons land. Maar baie vinnig verander alles. Die koronavirus slaan toe, en die hele wêreld word onderstebo gekeer. “Dinge is anders nou, meneer, in die tyd van die gif,” soos ’n ou oom by die plaaslike kafee vir Dana vertel.

Dana beskryf die eerste veertig dae van die eerste inperking; dan ry hy trein om sy sterwende vriend in Gauteng te gaan groet. Hy skryf oor die treinrit, en ook oor die treine wat nie meer ry nie. Laastens praat hy met die mense wat die grootste gevaar loop ter wille van ander – die dokters en verpleegsters wat die siekes versorg. Dan kry hy self ook Covid19.

Dana se kenmerkende fyn waarneming maak In Die Tyd Van Die Gif ’n leesmoet. Daar is pyn en verlies, maar ook geloof en hoop. Dit alles met ’n goeie skeut humor.

"[S]heds light not only on the obstacles to making motherhood safer, but to improving the health of poor populations in general."-Social Anthropology Since 1987, when the global community first recognized the high frequency of women in developing countries dying from pregnancy-related causes, little progress has been made to combat this problem. This study follows the global policies that have been implemented in Solola, Guatemala in order to decrease high rates of maternal mortality among indigenous Mayan women. The author examines the diverse meanings and understandings of motherhood, pregnancy, birth and birth-related death among the biomedical personnel, village women, their families, and midwives. These incongruous perspectives, in conjunction with the implementation of such policies, threaten to disenfranchise clients from their own cultural understandings of self. The author investigates how these policies need to meld with the everyday lives of these women, and how the failure to do so will lead to a failure to decrease maternal deaths globally. From the Introduction: An unspoken effect of reducing maternal mortality to a medical problem is that life and death become the only outcomes by which pregnancy and birth are understood. The specter of death looms large and limits our full exploration of either our attempts to curb maternal mortality, or the phenomenon itself. Certainly women's survival during childbirth is the ultimate measure of success of our efforts. Yet using pregnancy outcomes and biomedical attendance at birth as the primary feedback on global efforts to make pregnancy safer is misguided.

lluminated by a profound yet humorous vision, Lifting the Taboo explores the specific relationship women of many colors, cultures, ages, and sexual orientations have to their own deaths, their attitudes towards loss, and their disposition to their role as primary care-givers to the dying.

Specifically, the book weighs the implications of breast cancer and examines in detail Alzheimer's Disease which, contrary to popular myth, can in several significant ways be perceived as a women's disease. Investigating mothers' responses to children's deaths, Sally Cline establishes that women's relationships to death are intricately connected to the experience of giving birth. They are, she argues, therefore psychologically and emotionally different from those of men. Cline goes on to examine women's roles and responses to AIDS and suicide, women's sexual relationships while dying, how society views widows as leftover lives, and women's radical work in hospices and death therapy, as well as their roles as female funeral directors.

Sociologists have debated suicide since the early days of the discipline. This book assesses that body of work and breaks new ground through a qualitatively-driven, mixed method 'sociological autopsy' of one hundred suicides that explores what can be known about suicidal lives.

This sociological work examines the phenomenon of the Death Cafe, a regular gathering of strangers from all walks of life who engage in "death talk" over coffee, tea, and desserts. Using insightful theoretical frameworks, Fong explores the common themes that constitute a "death identity" and reveals how Cafe attendees are inspired to live in light of death because of death. Fong examines how the participants' embrace of self-sovereignty and confrontation of mortality revive their awareness of and appreciation for shared humanity. While divisive identity politics continue to foster neo-tribalisms and the construction of myriad "others," Fong makes visible how those who participate in Death Cafes end up building community while being inspired toward living more fulfilling lives. Through death talk unfettered from systemic control, they end up feeling more agency over their own lived lives as well as being more conscious of the possibility of a good death. According to Fong, participants in this phenomenon offer us a sublime way to confront the facticity of our own demise-by gathering as one.

Suicide among African Americans occurs at about half the rate with which it occurs among white Americans. Why is the black rate of suicide so much lower, particularly when one considers the effects of racism and other socio-economic factors on African Americans? One answer that has been offered is that churches within the African-American community have a greater influence than among white Americans and that they provide amelioration of social forces that would otherwise lead to suicide. To date no other book has provided an in-depth ethnographic study of the buffering effect of the black church against suicide. Findings from Early's study indicate that there is a consensus within the black community in terms of its attitudes and beliefs toward suicide. Early concludes that suicide is alien to underlying African-American belief systems and a complete denial of what it means to be black. This important study will be invaluable to sociologists and others studying contemporary race relations and social problems.

A practical overview of clinical issues related to end-of-life care, including grief and bereavement

The needs of individuals with life-limiting or terminal illness and those caring for them are well documented. However, meeting these needs can be challenging, particularly in the absence of a well-established evidence base about how best to help. In this informative guide, editors Sara Qualls and Julia Kasl-Godley have brought together a notable team of international contributors to produce a clear structure offering mental health professionals a framework for developing the competencies needed to work with end-of-life care issues, challenges, concerns, and opportunities.

Part of the "Wiley Series in Clinical Geropsychology, " this thorough and up-to-date guide answers complex questions often asked by patients, their families and caregivers, and helping professionals as well, including:

How does dying occur, and how does it vary across illnesses?

What are the spiritual issues that are visible in end-of-life care?

How are families engaged in end-of-life care, and what services and support can mental health clinicians provide them?

How should providers address mental disorders that appear at the end of life?

What are the tools and strategies involved in advanced care planning, and how do they play out during end-of-life care?

Sensitively addressing the issues that arise in the clinical care of the actively dying, this timely book is filled with clinical illustrations, guidance, tips for practice, and encouragement. Written to equip mental health professionals with the information they need to guide families and others caring for the needs of individuals with life-threatening and terminal illnesses, "End-of-Life Issues, Grief, and Bereavement" presents a rich resource for caregivers for the psychological, sociocultural, interpersonal, and spiritual aspects of care at the end of life.

Also in the "Wiley Series in Clinical Geropsychology""Psychotherapy for Depression in Older Adults""Changes in Decision-Making Capacity in Older Adults: Assessment and Intervention""Aging Families and Caregiving"

This comprehensive overview of the funeral home business provides valuable inside information needed by thoughtful consumers, legal advisers, trust officers, and even clergy - all those who must confront the hard practical questions that surround one of life's most trying and emotion-filled experiences. Most of us try our best to be cost-conscious consumers. Yet when faced with the sad task of arranging a funeral, grief, sorrow, and guilt often make us vulnerable. The stress of heightened emotion prevents us from asking pertinent questions about our options and the costs involved. Perplexed by the mystery that surrounds funeral directors, survivors are left to struggle through this painful ordeal with little or no guidance. How does one select a funeral home? What obligations and functions are properly the family's and which should be expected of the funeral home? Who is financially responsible for the funeral? What funeral options are available and which are best? Is it possible to arrange a dignified yet affordable funeral? Is it crass to be concerned about costs at a time like this? These are some of the questions addressed by former funeral director Gregory W. Young in The High Cost of Dying. His easy-to-read reference guide aides consumers - those who are currently in need and those who just want to be prepared - to arrange a funeral while at the same time avoiding unnecessary charges. Young's compassion for the grief stricken and his in-depth understanding of funeral preparation combine to provide a unique perspective on the history and psychology of the American funeral. Unlike sensational media stories or muckraking books of the past, Young's valuable work offers an honest, straightforward view of this difficult and emotion-filled process. Readers will learn why a funeral can be so expensive and that, like any other business, funeral practitioners control only some of the costs involved. Surprisingly, he demonstrates how the funeral director can be a valued ally in holding down costs. Honest funeral practitioners will applaud the author's efforts to engage the public's interest in gaining a clearer image of what funeral home owners do to make their living. Each chapter of this information-packed book covers an important aspect of the contemporary funeral: the need for consumerism, the funeral in history, how the funeral director can help the survivors, making the choice between burial and cremation, the importance of the funeral arrangement conference, outlining the funeral contract, describing common funeral rip-offs, how to pre-arrange a funeral, answering frequently asked consumer questions, and much more. Of vital importance are the special features of this remarkable volume: the handy funeral arrangement checklist that helps consumers determine their needs; a discussion of price ranges for specific services, caskets and burial vaults, and miscellaneous expenses; and an appendix that contains both the current Federal Trade Commission Rule (1984) on funeral industry practices and the 1994 rule that will soon be implemented. Never before has so much valuable information been compiled by such a noted authority on a topic that will inevitably touch all of us.

Zopf provides a comprehensive account of the biological components of mortality, its various forms and causes, and its many differentials. The study considers mortality among a range of populations, according to differentials such as age, gender, race, ethnic origin, socioeconomic and marital status, and urban or non-urban residence. It also traces changes in the impact of degenerative afflictions, infectious and parasitic diseases, and environmental factors. The result is a current and comprehensive treatment of changes in mortality and its causes in the United States. The many graphs and tables present succinct and clear evidence of current mortality trends, and the extensive bibliography adds to the usefulness of this work as a research tool. The text begins with an introductory overview of the components of mortality and the methods of measuring it. The following chapter analyzes mortality within the general population according to specific differentials. The study then treats patterns, trends, and causes of infant mortality. Zopf next considers the prevalence of several causes of death among different demographic groups, and he examines life expectancy for particular populations. A concluding chapter synthesizes the wealth of information contained within this work. Demographers, sociologists, and health professionals will find this volume a valuable addition to their libraries.

* PRE-ORDER YOUR COPY TODAY * The compelling and moving memoir of forensic psychiatrist Dr Duncan Harding

Dead women litter the visual landscape of the 2000s. In this book, Clarke Dillman explains the contextual environment from which these images have arisen, how the images relate to (and sometimes contradict) the narratives they help to constitute, and the cultural work that dead women perform in visual texts.

Mourning, Modernism, Postmodernism traces the emergence of a fundamentally new way of writing about individual and collective mourning, demonstrating how a refusal of consolation and closure succeeds in promoting a progressive cultural politics crucial for reimaging gender, racial, and sexual subjects.

Drawing upon a vast range of human experience and reflection, The Eternal Pity: Reflections on Dying demonstrates how people have tried to cope with the inevitability of death. Different cultures, informed by religious belief and sometimes desperate hope, teach people to respond to their own death and the death of others in modes as various as defiance, stoic resignation, and grief unbridled to the point of exhaustion. In addition to examples from literature, poetry, and religious texts, Father Richard John Neuhaus provides an intensely personal account of his encounter with death through emergency cancer surgery, and reflects on the changes that encounter has made in the way he lives.

While some contemporary writers have deplored the "denial of death" in our culture, The Eternal Pity shows how themes of death and dying are perennial and pervasive, although not always made entirely specific. Society may be viewed as a disorganized march of multitudes waving little banners of meaning in the face of the threat of non-being that is death. Some selections in this book reveal people utterly surprised by their mortality; others highlight how the whole of one's life can be a preparation for what used to be called "a good death." For some, life is a relentless effort to hold death at bay; for others, death is, although not welcomed, reflectively anticipated. Nothing so universally defines the human condition as the fact that we shall die. The Eternal Pity helps us to understand how the prospect of that final indignity compels a variety of decisions about how we might live.